Max Years Rule

[kq76]

Do any other leagues out there have a max contract years rule? If so, what exactly is your rule and does it work well in your opinion?

For several years (real time), we've had a max of 5 years rule and while I very much agree with the reasons behind it, it's always been a pain in the butt to deal with. Invariably, someone forgets about it and when they do they feel that the years should just be edited down. The problem is those who were following the rules get screwed over because they're at a disadvantage in signing the guy and then on top of it by the time the guy signs somewhere else they're either behind in the negotiations with other alternative players or they even lose out on other players completely since they didn't have the room to offer to both at once. Another problem is that the extra years probably helped convince the player to sign and who knows if the player still would have signed with that team if it weren't for the extra years. My attitude toward the rule violator is: tough, the rule is there, if you don't follow it and happen to sign the guy then he should go back to FA and you shouldn't get to go after him again since you wasted the offers of others. Still, it's a problem.

Perhaps it's only problematic because we have the wrinkle that you can offer more years if the player is requesting more years. Perhaps if we didn't have that, at least for FA, then it wouldn't be such a problem. That wrinkle was probably brought in over concern of not being able to extend your own player, but once they hit FA who cares. All that matters then is the money per year and incentives. Hmm, maybe I just solved it. Thanks for reading.

I might as well still ask the question though: does anyone have a similar rule and does how you deal with it actually work well?

[jarmenia]

We don't have a max number of years rule but I can understand why some leagues would. I've just never been a fan of a ton of rules that have to be kept track of outside of the game because people forget. If there was a way to enforce it in game I'd probably be more for it.

Since you guys do use it, I'd go with your suggestion of just releasing the player back to FA for the reasons you stated. By releasing him back to FA the team that signed him will essentially be "fined" the cost of the contract. This could be a huge amount so that would probably need to be adjusted some way but to me that's the best solution.